New Mexico proposal would allow concealed handguns in bars

FILE - In this Dec. 27, 2012 file photo, Clark Aposhian, president of Utah Shooting Sport Council, demonstrates with a plastic gun, rear, while Joanna Baginska, a fourth-grade teacher from Odyssey Charted School, in American Fork, Utah, aims a 40 cal. Sig Sauer during concealed-weapons training for the teachers in West Valley City, Utah. School board members Washington, Ill., are thinking about a proposal to arm train a handful of administrators as auxiliary police officers and allow them to carry concealed handguns on campus, and nowhere else. Washington police Chief Jim Kuchenbecker said Monday, Jan. 14, 2013, that training Washington Community High Schools administrators as officers is a way around Illinois' law against carrying concealed weapons. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- A Republican legislator is proposing to allow people licensed to have a concealed handgun to take their weapons into a bar.

Rep. Zach Cook, a Ruidoso lawyer, introduced the measure last week in the House.

The proposal is similar to a bill by Cook that died in the Legislature two years ago and would have allowed permit holders to take their loaded concealed handguns into schools, on college campuses, bars and buses.

Under a 2010 law, people can bring their concealed handguns in New Mexico restaurants serving beer and wine unless the eatery prohibits firearms.

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However, it remains illegal to take a concealed weapon into a bar or a restaurant with a full liquor license -- places that serve whiskey and other liquor besides wine and beer.